What Can Professional Wrestling Teach Preachers
Storytelling's role in enchantment
I am almost embarrassed to admit that I am a fiend for content about the behind-the-scenes reality and history of professional wrestling. No, I do not enjoy the art of pro-wrestling, or at least I have not since I was a kid. But, if there is a book on the origins of professional wrestling, or a documentary about the old regional expressions of it, I am drawn to its contents like a moth to a flame. Why am I drawn to the concept of wrestling, but not the product?
I suppose it is that such a thing exists and is so popular. Here we have a fake competition, a scripted, athletic event that is bathed in melodrama and the audience is in on it, but cheers like it’s a sporting competition, nonetheless. It is the fandom that is remarkable to me. Fans are committed. They are immersed. They give themselves wholly to the drama unfolding in front of them. When I investigate wrestling’s history and better understand its methods, I see that wrestling’s appeal is twofold: spectacle and story. And in the case of wrestling, story is the spectacle! Wrestling has tapped into the same human interest of drama and spectacle that religious observance has tapped into, but it seems to me that wrestling is taking itself more seriously than the church in its effort to offer a spectacular story that touches lives.
When I was growing up, wrestling made sense. It was the 1980’s, and giant, muscular men doing over the top feats of strength was part of the cultural aesthetic. See any number of blockbuster action stars and their many cinematic franchises, such as Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme. And, at least as a child, people still argued about whether wrestling was real or fake. The whole spectacle was still shrouded by a secretive showman’s culture. “Babyfaces” were the good guys, “Heels,” the villains. They all had gimmicks to shape their character’s personality and story. They were committed to the storyline above all else. The term for this is “kayfabe.” Kayfabe might be concerned about the storyline’s insistence that one babyface is a sworn enemy of a particular heel, or that another babyface has a neck injury. Since those are elements of the storyline, and kayfabe means committing to the storyline at all cost, the wrestlers who are sworn enemies would never be seen fraternizing after the show at a restaurant, and the wrestler with the phony neck injury would never be caught alive without a neck brace on, even when they are off the clock. The wrestler’s sole commitment is to the storyline.
All these traditions and customs arose out of wrestling history with carnival sideshows and circuses. In an era when showmanship was everything, wrestlers learned to put on elaborate spectacles of strength and drama. Even the tradition of “selling” or acting like you are in intense pain by your opponent’s outlandish hold on your arm developed because early wrestlers tried to make their moves look real and dramatic to audience members sitting far away in some traveling circus tent. Being good at “selling” for another wrestler is a way you can help “put over” others, thus increasing their acclaim and popularity. All of these traditions arose out of devotion to the story being told in and around the ring.
Over time and evolution of the artform, new developments have taken place. In the old days, wrestling was dominated by regional fiefdoms, and stars represented those region’s sensibilities. But in the 1980’s a consolidation took place, and the top characters became known nationally. With WrestleMania, a spectacle meant to be the “sport’s” very own Superbowl, professional wrestling took on the character of having an annual season where stories can be shaped and told in a rhythm of annual high-water marks. Through the 1990’s the stories and characters reflected the darker and more cynical nature of the wider culture. And the stories told were added to with more pyrotechnics and technology. And throughout the decades, kayfabe has been declining. Wrestling being a rigged event used to be denied. Then it was ignored. At some point it was sold as real with a wink and a smile. By now, no one calls it a sport any longer. It has been rebranded as “sports entertainment.” And now the fans are in on the spectacle.
Recently, a docuseries has aired on Netflix called Unreal. It is the first ever behind the scenes, look at how the “sausage is made” production of its kind for professional wrestling. Now fans get to see how the “company,” as it is now referred, does all that they already knew it did: create the stories, promote the wrestlers, play on emotion, develop characters, honor legacies, and so much more. The thing that interests me is how many people it takes to put on the spectacle. The wrestlers are in the ring. They perform a pre-scripted and at times improvised match with the aid of producers. Then there are those producing the live show and the camera workers. To add to the spectacle and drama are the music, lighting, pyro-technic folks. The ring side announcers are there to act as narrators for the audience, and sometimes they are there to reflect the moods of the audience.
That is the most compelling fact I learned from the documentary. Those whose job it is to plan the drama feel it is necessary to take the audience’s feelings into account. If the crowd does not accept a character or storyline, the whole company can tell from the in-arena response. Yes, the producers will try to tell a story by manipulating emotions over time and story. But if such plans do not take, they will pivot in a new direction. Audience reaction is part of the storied spectacle. It is as if the mimetic desire that reverberates through the crowd is a character all unto itself. This makes the whole affair a living, breathing reality larger than those of the bookers and storytellers of the show.
As the documentary shows the wrestlers in their homes and in their training, and the bookers in the writer’s room, it even shows the pre-match gatherings of producers, you notice that the one thing that their shared efforts are in the service of is: story. It is the story being told that draws in the viewer. Even now, after realizing that the whole game is rigged, the crowds do not care. They appreciate the athleticism, and the showmanship, indeed. But what they turn up for in the whole affair is the spectacle of story. Like an outlandish daytime soap opera, viewers tune in and show up for living events en masse and freely give themselves over to the story. The stories, no matter how elaborate, far-fetched, or new, connect with audiences through their emotions, and doing so in the bespectacled fashion that it does grants a grandeur that surpasses the doldrums of the ordinary. In wrestling the characters and story-arcs are larger than life, everything is “more,” and vicariously fans feel a sense of their own lives being augmented for having taken the ride!
As a preacher I am enamored by the commitment to a story that shapes wrestling’s greatest gift. And as a curious person who has always been drawn to unique communities and identity formations – such as carnivals and its “carnies,” sideshows and the “barkers,” Hobos with their symbol systems, traveler communities and the like – the fact that professional wrestling is now a multi-billion-dollar industry built upon a spectacle makes me want to learn what we in the world of religion can replicate for our own ends. What is more, I think that the dual commitments to story and spectacle have everything to do with adding a little enchantment to another wise disenchanted world.
Part of our disenchantment is the loss of a story. When the world is seen as a space of brute fact, or to think of nature only as a set of stuff with no purpose, and there is no overarching story or purpose, then the sense of personal purpose, destiny, or higher end wanes. Into a world where our basic stories of good overcoming evil, or progress to the divine call have been eclipsed by materialistic and accidental causes and effects, having a story to live by can only come by the force of will—however one is discovered through family, culture, or religion, is simply made up to make us feel existentially meaningful. And in that story-less world wrestling offers stories that tend to fit into a grand overarching and somehow psychologically compelling story—good overcoming evil.
Spectacle too, rebuts the trends toward disenchantment. Spectacle, as its name suggests, is at least a visual display, or it is an eye-catching event, for public consumption. Spectacles can and do enchant the human mind through drawing the imagination away from mundane expectations, and they can overwhelm the senses as well as emotions to a feeling of sublime—too much to take in at any one moment. This evokes the further sense of “something more” in the world, which is just one step in charming us toward the delights of the world. It can also stir the heart toward connecting with world, and anything that humans want to connect with in personal ways is best spoken on of in the words of poetry much more so than reductive/materialist language. What could give us a more enchanted view than the words of poetry.
Of course, story-formed spectacles occur outside of professional wrestling. They have been successful in community harvest festivals, highly anticipated film releases (such as Hitchcock’s suspenseful marketing campaign prior to Psycho), mass gatherings for sport, etc. And a genealogy of such cultural expressions will no doubt discover that at the root of such phenomena one will, no doubt, discover humanity’s religious impulses, for example the ancient festivals of Dionysus, Jewish Passover, Carnivale, and Halloween.
My point is simple, and I suppose it’s rather obvious now. People who wish to share a sacred message in today’s milieu of disenchantment would do well to add storied spectacle to their communication to aid in proper re-enchantment. The good news is that the entirety of religious faith is built upon a story of profound purpose. And it is supported by many aspects of spectacle through its ritual, liturgy, and communal practice. The question for contemporary priests, pastors, liturgists, spiritual directors, retreat leaders, and so on is: are we telling the story well and are we honoring the “spectacles” at our disposal or are we cheapening them.
A clergy colleague of mine and I were at a denominational conference together. During a time of corporate worship, we participated as the liturgists over explained that as individuals we carry heaven burdens, and it is useful to have friends who can help us through all that weighs us down. Then, during corporate singing, we were instructed to an activity (I still do not know what we were to do, in actuality) where we all took knotted thread and tried to help the worshippers to our right and left in untying the knots. The whole point was to prove that we are capable of helping one another navigate problems. The congregation was a gathering of adult ministers, not children, I’d like to add.
Later in the same worship service, we were to receive the Eucharist. To add drama to the moment, we were led to communion stations around the sanctuary. In so doing, we ignored the central altarpiece of the sanctuary, and we favored make-shift stations around the sanctuary, where we were to gather as groups around tables – to mimic being at dinner tables with others – where we each got a loaf of bread and a personalized bottle of Welch’s grape juice. The stated intent was to decrease a sense of individualism in communion while evoking community and abundance. If that was the goal, I think the individual bottles of juice missed the mark, but I could see and understand the intent. Bottles were more ample and befitting of abundance than mini-shot glasses of juice, I suppose.
Toward the end of our worship together, I looked to my colleague, and I asked him, “why do you think we have to add to the liturgy of communion, don’t you think it is already dramatic, if we just take the liturgy seriously?” He agreed, “yeah it all feels a bit hokey. Like we are trying too hard.” “What did you think about the whole yarn thing,” he asked me. I did not respond with words; I just gave him a look of disinterest. Then he said, “I am not even sure I understand what that exercise was trying to communicate.” There was a lull in our conversation for a moment. He then broke the silence, “I don’t like arts and crafts worship.”
Arts and Crafts worship, now that is a funny!
I appreciate creativity. But here is an important question, will our creative additions improve the story we are telling? Will they add to or detract from the spectacle? This brings me back to professional wrestling. As much as the business has changed through time in terms of technology, humane working conditions, the addition of women to the roster, and so on, in the end nothing that is added will be accepted if it does not serve the story, and does not elevate its spectacle. Religious communicators will do well to take seriously the given story, stories, and spectacled liturgies/rituals given and received from of old for they have their own power to re-enchant the mind to God’s ever in-breaking into our midst. And then, think of other ways to add holy spectacles to communal expression such as festivals, expressions of art and performance, prophetic demonstrations, and so much more. But only if they elevate the spectacular story already being told.